


A Notorious Fury

by SongsofSamael



Category: Inception (2010), Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreams, Dreamsharing, M/M, Memory Loss, Slash pairing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 21:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4075069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongsofSamael/pseuds/SongsofSamael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur loses Eames in uncharted dreamscape territory and sets out to find him--losing himself a little in the process. The old cliche "we're all mad here" comes to mind as Arthur falls deeper and deeper into a world not his own, looking for a man he can hardly remember the longer he stays sleeping...<br/>Or maybe he's finally waking up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Notorious Fury

**Author's Note:**

> ** This is a tentative work-in-progress. We'll see. Please bear with me. **

He could almost remember the dream going sideways.

The last thing he could recall was Yusuf—a man, bespectacled, whose sweat was a beaded crown upon his brow despite the chill in the air—counting backwards from ten. There was a swooping sensation in his gut, like a drop—a kick—and he was down, spiraling down, down, more deeply down than he had ever gone before.  
He was supposed to be…retrieving something.

The name he’d been called prior to waking up in this arid wasteland was gone. His new name was “Notorious”—he’d determined this from the half-mad scratchings on the spoke he’d picked up from his rocky bedside. The cliffs of the citadel were not an unkind resting place—a minor discomfort to pay for his time to come in sacred Valhalla.  
He knew also that he was not as he’d appeared before.

His skin was ashen—half sickness, half white paint that was smeared on him with a toxic tingle that made him think of lead. It was heavy, difficult to pick off, though it flaked around his lips and eyes. His lips had been scarred; stretched into a gruesome and skeletal smile that looked as though his skull was trying to rupture out of his skin. His eyes were bloodshot; one possibly beyond repair. His fingers twitched; his mouth was dry and tasted acrid.

Most importantly, perhaps, was the blueprint of a Porsche engine—a chariot—embossed on his ghostly skin. It stretched across his chest and back; raised bumps like tiny mountain ranges describing in elaborate detail the—architecture—of the engine’s creation. Lovingly rendered by a steady hand, the imagery depicted something holy. Sacred. An engine so soft and carefully-crafted it purred more than it roared, but that was alright, sometimes—

Sometimes stealth was what one needed in the desert. Sometimes stealth was necessary to achieve true victory.

Notorious was fond of these marks.

He wasn’t even sure why. They reminded him of some place beyond the Salt that spoke of home. Home he could not put a name to just yet, other than a sentiment—heady cologne, a girl’s laughter, a nudged chair, a knowing look, gunfire, some place warm and safe and full of luxuries—he couldn’t place, either.

What did come to him, in that dark place, accompanying these scattered fissures of light in the shadows, was a distinctive earnestness to move. It thrummed in his chest like the drums of war, urging him to stagger up; drunkenly, from his stony cot, stumbling off down the narrow hallway like a dead thing rising—I live, I die, I live again!—a swaggering Lazarus shedding white paint like false snow and old bandages from wounds he did not remember receiving.

In the distance, the gunning of engines and clanking of gears caught his ears and ground his teeth. The ancient shriek of rusty metal promised something that made his adrenaline sing; his blood gasoline on fire in his veins. Bringing his hands up briefly to the back of his head, Notorious drew his digits over scarred, bare flesh and sighed low.  
What was he supposed to be looking for?

That concept stirred in his hazy head again. The rippling waves of heat filtering through the air, frying his brain, somehow managed to pinpoint the need with a magnifying glass focus. It seared him suddenly—

A face full of square angles; a pointed nose, a growling voice that shook like gravel caught under a—no, not like gravel, like…thunder. Thunder before a flooding rain, like the clouds were laughing. That cologne again, and wild blue eyes set under a heavy brow. Heavy everything. He felt so heavy…he wet his lips; the thirst from the mere concept of water driving him back into reality. The Immortan was right. Water was only a weakness.

Notorious found himself standing inside the Room of Wheels, looking up at the sunlight winking through the distant hole in the roof. Raising his hands, he formed a triangle with his fingers before threading them, inclining his head before the stack of glistening chrome that was the mountainous steering wheel pile.

Then the man formerly known as Arthur, now Notorious, reached for the steering wheel that looked like a poker chip from Hell, and set off to find his rig, to drive off into the desert on a mission he knew he’d likely not return from.

But that was alright.

He’d live, he’d die.

He’d live again.


End file.
